“Scoundrel!” cried his assailant, “we have met again—once before to your discomfiture; this time to the defeat of your base villany; beware, the third time it will be fatal to you!”
These words, forced between clenched teeth, were growled in his ears, and then it seemed that myriads of flashes of light dashed before his sight; he was hurled to the ground with tremendous violence, and he remembered no more.
The stranger bent tenderly over the prostrate form of Helen, raised her up gently, imprinted a passionate kiss upon her cold lips, and pressed her to his breast.
“Mine, mine only, my wife, let me see who will dare to take her from me now!”
As he muttered these words, he lifted her senseless form carefully and fondly in his arms, just as though she had been a child, and he bore her to the side of the ornamental water, where lay a boat.
In this he laid her gently down, covered her with a boat cloak, and rowed swiftly away with his prize.
CHAPTER II—SUSPICION.
“Who never loved, ne’er suffered; he feels nothing